I have prepared the following dish many times at the Château d’Amondans in France where the dish’s creator, Frédéric Médique, was the chef. There we started with whole quail weighing about 200 grams. After the breast was boned and the legs removed, the remaining meat and carcass were used to prepare the glace used for the sauce. The breasts were pounded with a cutlet hammer to produce thin pieces of meat that were almost twice as big around as before the pounding. To simplify the coating process, three cooks would work in an assembly line manner—the first dipping the breasts in flour, shaking off the excess, and dropping the coated breast in the egg; the second lifting the breasts from the egg, draining off the excess, and dropping them into the nuts; and the last pressing the nuts into the breasts and then arranging them on baking sheets for cooking later in the day.

Although originally prepared in a restaurant setting, this dish can easily be prepared in a home kitchen. It took me a couple of years before I was able to find a source of adequate quail. I could easily find quail, but they were not large enough for this preparation. I eventually located a vendor that specialized in supplying game to restaurants. They were able to provide me with boned-out quail that were sufficiently large, but because they were already boned, I had to find a different source of the bones for preparing the glace required for the sauce. (Chicken works just fine.) I had to become my own assembly line for coating the breasts. I use my left hand for dipping in the flour and my right for the egg. After a quick wash, I use both hands for coating the breasts with the nuts. I usually do the pounding and coating early in the afternoon so the breasts are ready to cook just before serving. The glace is prepared well in advance so the sauce can be prepared at the last minute.

To prepare the dried orange peel required for the breading, remove the zest from an unwaxed orange using a vegetable peeler. Carefully remove any white pith attached to the skin. Mince the skin extremely fine. Place the minced peel on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dry in a 75 °C (170 °F) oven for about an hour.

In Amondans the dish was served with chips de lard—very crisp, very thin strips of bacon. The accompanying vegetable varied, but it was always something that allowed the quail to easily sit flat on top of it. The preparation pictured below is with purée mousse de chou-fleur, pureed cauliflower.

caille croustillante aux amandes et pistaches

4

whole quail

flour

1

egg, beaten

50 grams

finely ground almonds

50 grams

finely ground pistachios

fine salt, to taste

1 teaspoon (about 2 grams)

minced fresh thyme

1 teaspoon (about 2 grams)

finely minced, dried orange peel

5 tablespoons

butter

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons

oil

1 large

shallot, minced

100 milliliters

Madeira wine

400 milliliters

quail, or chicken, glace

1.

Remove the whole breast, with skin, from the quail carcasses. Trim any excess skin. Place each breast between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound until the breast is about twice its original size. Set aside.

2.

Remove each leg and thigh from the carcasses as a single piece. Trim the skin to make it neat. Set aside. Reserve the carcasses for stock.

3.

Set out 3 plates for coating the breasts. Place flour in the first, place the beaten egg in the second, and place a mixture of the nuts, salt, thyme, and orange peel in the third. Working with one breast at a time, dip each first in the flour, shaking off any excess. Then dip it in the egg, allowing the excess to drain off. Finally dip it in the nut mixture. Press the mixture onto the surface to evenly coat the breast. Set it aside on a plate.

4.

Preheat oven to 75 °C (170 °F).

5.

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Season the quail legs with salt and pepper and fry gently in the butter with the pan covered. The skin should be browned but not burnt. Drain the legs on a piece of absorbent paper and set aside in the oven.

6.

In the meantime, heat 1 tablespoon butter and the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Gently cook the breasts until the coating starts to brown on each side. Set the breast aside in the oven.

7.

Discard the pieces of nut coating from the frying pan and add the last 2 tablespoons of butter. Sweat the shallots until they are soft. Add the Madeira and increase the heat to high. Reduce almost totally. Add the glace and reduce until thick. Season with salt and pepper.

8.

Arrange the 2 legs on each warmed serving plate. Place a breast on top of the legs. Spoon the sauce around the perimeter of the plates. Serve immediately.

In November 1997, I had the pleasure and honor of studying with Jean-Pierre Silva at the Hostellerie de Vieux Moulin in Bouilland, France. It was my first stage at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I learned many things from Chef Silva, including how to remove the intestines from live crayfish. After my visit, when I was window shopping at the magazine store in the Dijon train station, I saw the book that this recipe came from on sale. As I scanned its pages on the train ride back to Paris, I was delighted to see that 11 pages were devoted to the cooking of Chef Silva. The following recipe was the first one in the section, but it wasn’t one that I had learned from during my visit.

When I first read the recipe, I had little expectation that I would ever be able to make it, let alone have the opportunity to eviscerate a handful of crayfish back home. Then about 18 months later, I noticed that one of the meat and fish stores I frequent had a bowl of live crayfish in the display case. I hurried home to find the recipe and to get an idea of how many I would need. I then rushed back to the store—they only had a few crayfish left when I was first there—and purchased enough to make the dish. That night I prepared the recipe for the first time.

There are over 500 species of crayfish worldwide so I doubt that the ones I used to prepare this recipe were the same as what I worked on in Bouilland. Nonetheless, removing the intestine worked just the same as I had learned. The process is very simple. At the end of the abdomen—the part we generally call the tail—is the tail fan. The fan consists of five fin-like appendages. The two outer pairs are called uropods. The center appendage on the tail fan is called the telson. To remove the crayfish’s intestine, which Chef Silva informed me has to be done before the crayfish is cooked, you hold the telson between your thumb and index finger and gently twist 90 degrees until you feel the telson crack away from the fan. Then you pull the telson gently to extract the intestine. That’s all there is to it! Très facile!

gâteau d’écrevisses et fromage blanc

14

live crayfish

1/2

roasted red pepper

4 tablespoons

extra virgin olive oil

fine salt

100 grams

fresh goat cheese, at room temperature

1 tablespoon

heavy cream

1 tablespoon

minced chives

12

baby spinach leaves

for court bouillon:

water

1/2 bunch

fresh cilantro

a few sprigs

fresh thyme

1

onion, quartered

coarse salt

1 stalk

celery, coarsely chopped

1.

Place all the court bullion ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove the intestines from the crayfish. Add the crayfish to the pot and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Drain crayfish and set in the refrigerator to cool. When cool, remove the tails from 12 of the crayfish and shell. Set aside.

2.

Puree the red pepper with 2 tablespoons of oil and a little salt in a small food processor or blender. Strain and set aside.

3.

Using a spatula, combine the goat cheese with the cream and then with 2 tablespoons oil. Finally, fold in the chives and set aside.

4.

Arrange 6 spinach leaves on each plate in a 10-cm diameter rosette. Using a 6-cm ring, form a small “cake” of cheese in the center of the spinach. Arrange five or six peeled crayfish tails on the cheese. Drizzle some red pepper puree on the plates next to the spinach. Decorate each plate with a whole crayfish.

The first time I had dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France was on a cold night in the fall of 1996. The restaurant was the two-star establishment of Guy Savoy in Paris. (It has since been elevated to three stars.) It was an amazing meal of about 24 courses with multiple wines. The only dish I remember from the meal was a lentil puree that tasted like mushrooms. All this has nothing to do with the following recipe, except that it came from an article about Guy Savoy.

I should have included this recipe in my article about purees, but I hadn’t tried it yet when I wrote that article. So I am including it now.

Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the pumpkin pieces and mix well. Season lightly with salt. Lower the heat and cook the pumpkin, covered, until tender, about 40 minutes. Stir occasionally.

2.

Remove the cover, increase the heat to medium, and stir the pumpkin with a wooden spatula to mash the pumpkin and evaporate the water release by the pumpkin. If the pumpkin seems a bit stringy, force it through a strainer to remove the strings.

3.

Incorporate the cream, 50 grams of cheese, and pepper into the mixture. Divide the mixture between individual baking dishes. Set aside.

4.

To heat for serving, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the surface of the pumpkin. Bake in a 180 °C (355 °F) oven until browned on top, about 20 minutes.

Cancoillote is not really a cheese. It is a preparation made from a cheese. But it is common to find it as part of the cheese selection at fine restaurants in Eastern France. I’ve even occasionally seen the preparation in plastic tubs in French supermarkets.

Cancoillote starts life as metton, an almost inedible hard cheese sold in quarter and half kilogram paper sacks. I’ve only seen one brand and that only at professional food stores. Once the metton is transformed into the unctuous mass called cancoillote, it becomes highly edible and very desirable.

The other important ingredient in cancoillote is the vin jaune—yellow wine. This is a unique wine made from a grape variety called savagnin grown in the Jura. The grapes are harvested late in the year so their sugar is fully developed. Once the fermentation is terminated, the new wine is aged in oak barrels for a minimum of 61/4 years without being opened and topped off. As the wine in the barrel slowly evaporates, a veil of yeast is formed on its surface that transforms it slowly into vin jaune while protecting it from oxidation. The color becomes bright yellow, like rich straw or gold with tinges of amber. The bouquet develops a surprising strength and, despite its high alcohol level of 13 or 14%, the taste of walnut continues to develop.

I learned the following recipe from David, the head waiter at Le Château d’Amondans in France. He said that he prepared the cancoillote in the manner that he learned from the the chef, Frédéric Médigue. When I was preparing cancoillote a year later at the restaurant where both David and Frédéric were now working, the Chef said that this wasn’t the way he prepared cancoillote. The ingredients were the same, but the proportions were different. But, I still prefer the recipe I learned from David. (It’s also different from the recipe shown on the metton package.)

la cancoillote

100 grams

metton affine

1 teaspoon

finely pureed garlic

30 grams

butter

120 grams

whole milk

30 grams

vin jaune

fine salt, to taste

finely ground white pepper, to taste

1.

Place the metton and garlic in a small saucepan along with a little water. Melt the metton thoroughly over low heat. Whisk in the butter until it is fully melted.

2.

Slowly whisk in the milk and then the vin jaune. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring continuously.

3.

Remove from heat and strain the cancoillote into a bowl. Chill thoroughly.

The preparation of many types of French sausages have previously been described on this web site. (For a refresher on basic techniques, see saucisse.) The following recipe is the first smoked sausage to be described in these pages. This one is made of simple ingredients and is one of my favorites.

Although these sausages require four days to complete, the total time required is only a little on each day. The three-day long curing is required to fully develop the subtle flavors of this sausage. The drying is required so that the smoke is properly absorbed by the sausage. Maintain the temperature of the smoker so that it is below 45 °C (115 °F) for the entire smoking process. Use a hardwood to generate the smoke. I prefer hickory or pecan. After smoking, these sausages are still essentially raw. I usually simply poach the sausages in simmering water for 10 minutes before serving.

Combine the meat, fat, salt, sugar, and pepper in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Combine the garlic and wine in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Refrigerate overnight.

2.

Grind the meat and fat together through a 3-mm plate. Mix thoroughly with the garlic and wine. Wrap tightly with plastic and refrigerate overnight.

3.

Soak sausage casing in warm water for 15 minutes. Rinse the inside of casing with water. Stuff the sausage mixture into casing. Tie into 15-cm long links. Hang the sausages to dry overnight in a refrigerator.